


Poison meets Dismay

by SiNe_Errore



Series: Dark Souls 3 One-shots [1]
Category: Dark Souls (Video Games), Dark Souls III
Genre: Dark Souls Journey, F/F, One Shot, few dialogue, lonely character
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-07
Updated: 2018-01-07
Packaged: 2019-03-01 11:48:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,420
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13294230
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SiNe_Errore/pseuds/SiNe_Errore
Summary: Cuculus, a cursed Undead and pyromancer from the Great Swamp, finds meaning when faced with the possibility of finding Lost Izalith, the home for pyromancy.





	Poison meets Dismay

**Author's Note:**

> I plan on doing this sort of one-shot for every obscure character in ds3, so stay tuned in for more if you like this.  
> This is my first work at A03, any constructive criticism is appreciated.

The life of an Undead is lonely. But it would be even more so for her if she did not have a purpose. The days of glory of the Great Swamp were long gone, and due to the Conversion, hollows from all across the lands were filling the space of the long-gone enchanted feeling that belonged to the trees in this now putrid place.

The charming mushroom-people gave space to savage Grus, a horrifying mix between a demon and putrid flesh; the Farron Keep was now abandoned, and the glorified Abyss Watchers were dominated by the very thing they existed to destroy.

And in the middle of all that, young Cuculus, now in her thirty-seventh lifetime, kept on enhancing her skills with poisonous pyromancy, which she swore to be a master of. For the Great Swamp was the home of many, if not all, pyromancers in the land. The place was perfect for the practice, because, apart from having a perfect environment for tranquility and concentration, it had the unusual fact that the flammable trees were surrounded by water, and that meant the pyromancers could burn everything they liked.

Everytime Cuculus learned something new, she noticed it was nothing but an enhancement of the things she already knew. And she was beginning to get tired of never learning anything __actually__  new. And she knew of only one place that could give her the knowledge she sought for. That place’s name was Izalith, and even with the Convergence, it would take her at least twenty lifetimes to reach it, let alone get the ancient scrolls. But she would do it nonetheless. It was either that or becoming hollow, and hollowing was not in her checklist.

 

\-------------------------------------------------”--------”--------------------------------------------------------------

 

It was a cold night, as she sought cover from the incoming storm. The ruins of Farron Keep’s walls were perfect for that. After entering and going to the half-roof that an inside balcony offered, the young woman sat besides a hollowed corpse that she had never seen there before. It had no Undead mark, she noticed. The stretched man had been cornered, it seemed, and was using the standard armor of the Paraban mercenary group. He wielded no swords, it seemed, and that on its own was intriguing.

She then jumped out of the balcony to the inside wall only then to hide beneath it. That’s when she heard the clamoring of heavy armor, and heavy feet accompanying that running on to her direction. And out of nowhere, there was the mercenary’s doom in front of her: a fully-armored Black Knight, using the iconic Ultra-Greatsword wielded by many of its kind.

Almost no time to react, she rolled from the first earth-shaking hit. The knight was slow due to the weight of its weapon, and Cuculus had some time to concentrate and think about how to kill an enemy that had protection from the only thing she knew: pyromancy.

The thoughts were going by freely in her adrenaline-filled mind, until the moment her roll finished and she felt a single drop of rain in her forehead. She had rolled out of the cover of the balcony, and the wet floor of the roofless inside wall made her slip. Her head hit the floor harshly, followed by her hands. The blood loss made her feel more alive, and using that she looked at her foe, ready to launch herself in any direction needed to avoid the next attack.

That was until she looked at the knight, with the sword already lowered to strike her. Everything seemed to be in slow motion. The drops of falling rain onto the front part of the knight’s helmet, reflecting the shy moonlight above. She looked at what seemed to be a drop falling exactly onto the sharp part of the weapon, and being cut in half. She closed her eyes, then felt the sweet scent of grass in a rainy day, a scent she hadn’t felt since the Swamp’s days of glory.

 

“ _ _What a lonely agony, the memory of memories lost.”__

 

\-------------------------------------------------”--------”--------------------------------------------------------------

As Cuculus gasps for air, her forehead hits the slimy moss that forms inside of her coffin’s top every time she closes it. Now, with her head aching, she pushes the ton-heavy piece of rock above her head to the right, and her eyes burn with the sensation of moonlight reaching them. Her mind collapses when the sound of the large piece of rock falling onto the floor hits her ears. The numb sensation of being reborn was something she would never get used to. The Undead Curse marking on her chest woke her from her collapsed state. As the pain in her torso faded, so did the inability to see: she was at the Cathedral of the Deep, and did not remember her past life. She exits her coffin, and uses her dirty nails to mark the thirty-eighth line in the hard rock’s face.

Using her calculations, she finds out that a hundred and fifty years have passed since she last dig a mark on that rock. Somehow, she remembers the terrain, but does not recall anything that had happened in her past life. She cleans the moss out of her clothes, and takes out the moss on top of the coffin’s top. To her dismay, she finds out that its not a dream when she sees the old phrase still marked there. That’s when she notices the tear flowing down the side of her nose, going to the side of her lip and staying there. She finally stands fully, with her entire back cracking to the movement. The feeling is good. She then proceeds to take her whip, which was her master’s before her, from the coffin.

As soon as the sound of the coffin being shut reaches her ears, she sits down against it from the effort. A smile is on her face. The next thing that needs to be done is complete her goal. After a long and cold night of freezing sweat, the sun touches her hair. Its a warm and comforting feeling, one she never thought she would feel again. At last, she decides to stand up and pursue her goal. Only... how? Izalith had been lost, and even if the tales that say its buried deep within Carthus Catacombs are true, how will she get there? She is alone, and she is a mere pyromancer...

No. She is __A__  pyromancer. Carthus is only a dangerous place in legend, anyway! She will provail, even if it takes her fifty lifetimes to do so! And there is nothing in the world that will chang-  the thought is cut when she trips on a root that was in her way. She falls to the floor, successfully landing without any major setbacks, apart from her now aching hand. After spitting hair out her mouth, she gets up again only to face a giant crystal lizard ready to plunge at her with its huge crystal-shaped claws. She rolls to the side and throws a fireball at the monster, which is staggered enough for her to place her hand inside of the animal’s chest and tear its heart out. As the muffled sound of the beast’s body hitting the floor is completed, Cuculus starts walking again. She remembers the little hill to her left, with the adorable tree on its top. She recalls the very climbable wall behind her, and the very climbable cliff behind that.

From the top of the cliff she’s at, she can see the majesty of the Cathedral, which, even with all the skeletons, is breathtaking. __Almost__  breathtaking. For the scent of the Swamp reaches her nose, and she remembers the old times she had with her master, playing in the now shallow waters of the lake there was then. After all, the scents are what bring the most memories, and it just now made her feel the pressure of the ring in her right hand. Tears reach her eyes, and the memory of the day Cornix completed her training and gave that ring to her is then as vivid as day.

Before she can notice anything, she is already above the Crystal Sage’s hall ruins, and sees the mage looking up at her from below. She smiles at the masked face hidden below the huge hat, and waves her hand. The Sage bows, and gestures for her to come closer, pointing at a corner with a table and two seats.

Cuculus jumps down from the little hill she’s at, only to reach a dirt way that leads either to a stone wall or the side of the hall. And that’s where she’s headed, to the table were the sage has seated, and the wine on its top. The sage fills two not-clean glasses, and delivers one to her as soon as she sits. He drinks through the mouth hole in his mask, drying the full glass with one swirl. Cuculus takes her time, and the Sage does not hurry her. After drinking some, she already feels better, lighter, forgetting the troubles and only caring about that little moment right there. The sun is high up in the sky, yet the world is not hot, as always.

After a while, the bottle is empty, and Cuculus is ready to leave. The Sage then offers her a beautiful crystal flower, and bows before disappearing into the ground. The table breaks, and so do the glasses and the bottle when they hit the harsh floor. She is left to wander alone, never taking the obvious or marked route. She knows her ways of getting around without having to fight. She rests a little in the treetops of the now poisonous lower half of the swamp, before going to face the Abyss Watchers; never letting any Gru or Darkwraith see her. As she jumps down to the front of the Legion’s door, she hears no battle within the hall. While opening the door, she is ready to fight. But there is no one in there. The secret passageway to Carthus is already open, and the Watchers compose the entirety of the temple’s floor. She feels the Abyss in their bodies, thus passes by quickly not to be accidentally infected with it. From the open staircase leading to the Catacombs, she smells the scent of dead bodies and rotting bones. It does not change her mind, though.

 

\-------------------------------------------------”--------”--------------------------------------------------------------The cold floor of the stone bricks room is distracting. She lost count of the number of skeletons she had to burn already, and was losing herself in the endless number of corridor in those stupid catacombs. She found herself in a hallway that led down, and there was a curve to the right not far below. It didn’t even pass through her head that that wasn’t the way to go. She had felt something. And that something led her to this obscure corridor, which she was now doing the curve to the right. And that’s when she saw __her__. A knight in Elite armor standing there, crying in a corner, but even so she felt like the armored woman in front of her was strong. When Cuculus made some noise, the armored figure stopped crying and looked at her direction.

 

\- Who are you? Are you hollow? - she said, as she laid her hand on the hilt of the straight sword attached to her belt.

 

\- I’m Cucul- her voice failed her, but even so, the armored woman felt a little less uneasy. - Caham. I’m Cuculus of the Great Swamp. I’m not hollow, and my goal is to look for the lost realm of Izalith. - Cuculus voice felt harsh, dry... After all, she hadn’t used it in a hundred and fifty years!

 

The knight stretches her arm, and offers a gloved hand for her to compliment. - I’m Anri, of Astora. I’m in search for Aldritch, from the Cathedral. He is now in Irithyll, it seems. Well, I had a companion. His name is Horace, but he fell and I can’t seem to find him. If you see him, would you please tell me where he is?

 

\- Yes, of course. Do you know if the legends about Izalith being below these catacombs are real?

 

\- I do know of a place called Smoldering Lake. It is indeed below here.

 

\- Thank you. If I find anyone, I will tell y- her voice fails her again, and she drops a mucus spit on the floor, feeling her throat empty. - Caham. I will tell you.

 

\- Thanks. May the flames guide you.

 

And with that, she sets off, going upwards from the hallway Cuculus just walked down. She’s now lonely again, and the feeling falls flat on her like the weight of the entire world. Anri is the only living person she has talked to in milennia, and now she is alone again. The pyromancer shrugs, and keeps going down the same corridor as before.

It ends on a platform underlooking the staircase leading to the depths of the Catacoms. The abyss between said staircase and the platform is very much tempting. The cold breeze coming out of it, the pure darkness... Yet, at the bottom, she felt it. Chaos. Smoldering chaos. And she wanted it. Her left foot slips from the edge of the huge abyss, and the world turns into darkness. Her whole life passing through the darkness, with flames to make it visually possible.

Then she felt it. The warm sensation of flame flowing freely through her, the very place she looked for, and that her master spent his whole life seeking. Izalith she imagined, with her eyes still closed, and the paradise for pyromancy it represented. As tears flew out of her face, she opened her eyes. Far above, she could see light. But the walls around her quickly became more and more red, and the hit against the boiling water shattered every bone in her body. The last thing she sees before the skull destroyed her brain was fire, a fiery chaos that would feed her the life she needed.

 

\-------------------------------------------------”--------”--------------------------------------------------------------

She cleans the green moss and the sweat from her forehead. The top of the coffin is already in place, and so is the new mark. But still, the old phrase that her parents had left there when she first died still meant the exact same thing after so many years... She knew that she had lived before, but didn’t know how. As she passes her finger over the marking, she says in a calm and slow voice:

 

\- What a lonely agony indeed...


End file.
